Great research from Jakob Nielsen on how business users interact with social networks, I especially like the part on 'overly frequent postings' which really annoy me (and I hope we're not in the same category).
Summary: Users like the simplicity of messages that pass into oblivion over time, but were frequently frustrated by unscannable writing, overly frequent postings, and their inability to locate companies on social networks. Some key insights form the article
- Users prefer casual style for business messages on social networks
- RSS feeds are seen as more trustworthy
- RSS feeds are checked at work, social networks from home
- Only 6% of users accessed corporate social networks from mobiles
- People like a single stream of news that pushes old stuff down
- Users are unlikely to search for old messages or scroll down
- Posting frequency and expectations are tied to the service
- If you post too rarely, your material will drift out of users' time-streams
- If you post too much, you'll crowd out other messages
- Three great motivators are fear, greed (deals), exclusivity (latest news)
- Sites that are not updated regularly give a bad impression
- Users don't actively seek out companies in social networks
- There's usually another trigger such as recommendations (re-tweets!)
- Overall message usefulness still scores low but trustworthiness high
- Useful messages have substance, are timely, provided expected info
- Trustworthiness is influenced by clear user names and logos
- The shorter the message, the more important the writing
Read the original article here
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/streams-feeds.html
Or buy the research report here (and email me a copy please)
http://www.nngroup.com/reports/streams/
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